Hip hop and spoken word at Harvard

Harvard Law School graduate Bryonn Bain brings his dynamic teaching style to campus this fall with his new course “Hip Hop and the Spoken Word: Theater Performance Laboratory.”

An author, actor, poetry champion, prison activist, and hip-hop artist, Bain introduced the new class on Sept. 7 at Harvard’s Farkas Hall, where he performed selections from his one-man multimedia show “Lyrics from Lockdown,” that tells the story of his wrongful imprisonment. Bain also invited students to the stage to audition for the new class with their own spoken-word compositions.

Drawing on influences that range from poet and author Nikki Giovanni to rapper and musician Nicki Minaj, students taking the course will research, write, record, and produce original work and explore texts from the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and the hip-hop generation.